I am senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News. I write about energy and environment issues, frequently focusing on global warming. I have presented environmental analysis on CNN, CNN Headline News, CBS Evening News, MSNBC, Fox News Channel, and several national radio programs. My environmental analysis has been published in virtually every major newspaper in the United States. I studied atmospheric science and majored in government at Dartmouth College. I obtained my Juris Doctorate from Syracuse University.

Interestingly, Brulle and his media allies place special emphasis on the so-called dark money given to conservative think tanks by foundations with anonymous donors. Only $64 million of the conservative think tanks’ $900 million in total donations come from foundations. At most, only $6.4 million of the “dark money” addresses global warming topics, with a net of only $3.2 million opposing global warming activism. Nevertheless, the assertion is dark money is nefarious money and has a special impact on the debate. As Cenk Uyger claimed in his video post:

“There’s over 140 different foundations … As you’re about to find out here, they’re totally funded by the groups that have a financial interest in making sure that you don’t believe in climate change. So those 140 different foundations are shell groups – they’re set up ironically by companies like Shell – to make sure that you believe something that’s going to help their bottom line that isn’t true.”

Curiously, neither Brulle nor Uyger provides any evidence or source material backing up the assertion that most money donated to conservative foundations is donated by energy companies with an agenda to fund global warming skeptics. They simply make the assertion based on speculation without providing any factual support. However, it is difficult to believe that most conservative foundation money is donated by energy companies with an anti-global warming agenda, especially when the conservative foundations give a large portion of the money to think tanks that support carbon taxes and think tanks that devote little attention the global warming issue.

Putting this minimal conservative dark money in context, liberal foundations with anonymous donors are major funders of global warming activist groups. For example, check out the list of Defenders of Wildlife’s “Select Funders” here. Heck, Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project sent out a fundraising letter last week telling people that an “anonymous donor” would match every other donation dollar-for-dollar. Somehow, neither Brulle nor the media remembered to mention these inconvenient truths in their narrative.

The long and short of it is think tanks and activist groups supporting global warming restrictions raise and spend far more money than think tanks and activist groups opposing global warming restrictions. Global warming activists may think they are scoring short-term political points by lying and misleading the public about such funding, but their lies will certainly come back to haunt them. They always do.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.